The last thing Titania wants is another strange stallion encroaching upon her time. She has had her fill of random men, thank you very much, and yet one comes out from behind the brush anyway, at least having the decency to announce his presence beforehand. The obsidian points of her ears slide back, her hard eyes flicking up to watch his approach; he glimmers, red and white and thickly muscled, in the half-light of the clearing, and after a moment, recognition flickers in her mind. She had seen him, read the unhappiness in his face, and now that she thinks of it, she can remember finding old whispers of a Luthien-tinged scent in places she’d never once passed through. With a flare of her nostrils, she realizes that scent is his.

At the same time, he mentions his ties to her home Island, and like a reflex she can feel the tension in her posture relaxing. He introduces himself, and the scowl on her face fades to something more neutral, then - as he jokes, candidly, about the similar ways in which their paths have come to cross - a tiny smile curves up the corners of her charcoal lips. Her ears turn sideways, and the flint in her eyes softens, just a bit. His lightness is a welcome respite from the shadowy places her mind has ventured to, of late; she remembers that part of herself, the part that would gambol about the glade with Oberon, that would spend hours playing nip-and-chase games with the foals and dancing in intricate patterns around the white birch guardians of the Thicket with Rille.

The games she plays here are far more serious, the dances far more deadly. Her choices carry far more weight, and the consequences of her actions stretch farther still into the impossibly distant future.

This keen awareness, then, keeps her expression mild as yet another soul joins them, her ears remaining pointedly sidelong. This mare, too, Titania has seen along the outskirts of the herd, though her scent carries the damp fruity-floral notes inherent to long-term dwellers of Atlantis, and her feminine coffee-and-cream form moves with such ease as to slip noiselessly into their conversation, not a single leaf rustled. Someone so familiar with the terrain almost inherently raises the painted mare’s suspicions, and she lifts her chin a bit, unsure of her’s intentions but planning for strife - just in case.

Again this stranger surprises her. Her words come clipped, to be sure, but whether that’s due to her inherent nature or her current circumstances, Titania can’t tell. If half a season has made her so testy, what, she thinks, would an entire season do? What about two seasons? A year? If this mare speaks the truth, she holds a strength within her that rivals the gods. Titania studies Vanya carefully, her mind travelling a million miles an hour, and vows to keep a closer eye on her. She may prove a useful ally - or, at worst, an informant, and thus deserving of even more scrutiny.

The speckled girl lets the silence stretch for a few seconds, processing everything. She clears her throat, then, shifting her weight to her other hip, and she bows her head slightly to the two of them in greeting, her voice neutral as she says, quite simply, “Titania, of the Thicket.” Then, with another quirk of her lips, she adds, “Prisoner four.” Her tail swishes hard, glancing against the white-studded flesh of her round belly. The last bit she adds quietly, eyes flicking briefly to the ground, then back. “...and five.” She doesn’t bother to explain; she knows that by now, halfway through her pregnancy, she’s showing, and there’s no point in trying to hide the obvious. She only wonders how many other little doves like them are out there, waiting for freedom that may never come.

Titania falls silent again, her eyes sliding expectantly from Vanya’s delicate face to Jabari’s. He is the one who’s approached her, presumably with some sort of agenda, and so she waits for it, refusing to tease it out of him. She’s too sleep-deprived to chase either of them off, and honestly, she doesn’t want to. This more solitary, reclusive phase of her life has left her lonely, starved for interaction without layers of hidden implications and secret traps. She sees the sparks of potential crackling in the filtered rays of sun between the three of them, so like the tiny winged insects that beseige her. Whether they catch the breeze and come, like wildfire, to virulent life, or fade into dull ash on the wind remains a mystery.